Quotes from Do Hard Things: A Teenage Rebellion Against Low Expectations

Alex Harris ·  242 pages

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“Courage is not the absence of fear. It is rather not letting your fear control your actions”
― Alex Harris, quote from Do Hard Things: A Teenage Rebellion Against Low Expectations


“The teen years are not a vacation from responsibility,” we had told the columnist. “They are the training ground of future leaders who dare to be responsible”
― Alex Harris, quote from Do Hard Things: A Teenage Rebellion Against Low Expectations


“What is possible when a generation stops assuming that someone else will take care of the brokenness in the world - or that someone else will capitalize on current opportunities - and realizes that they are called to take action?”
― Alex Harris, quote from Do Hard Things: A Teenage Rebellion Against Low Expectations


“Great faith is the product of great fights. Great testimonies are the outcome of great tests. Great triumphs can only come out of great trials.”
― Alex Harris, quote from Do Hard Things: A Teenage Rebellion Against Low Expectations


“Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity” (NIV).”
― Alex Harris, quote from Do Hard Things: A Teenage Rebellion Against Low Expectations



“It all boils down to a principle at the heart of Christian character: we have to care more about pleasing God than we care about pleasing man.”
― Alex Harris, quote from Do Hard Things: A Teenage Rebellion Against Low Expectations


“It’s about an idea. It’s about rebelling against low expectations. It’s about a movement that is changing the attitudes and actions of teens around the world. And we want you to be part of it.”
― Alex Harris, quote from Do Hard Things: A Teenage Rebellion Against Low Expectations


“Our uprising is against a cultural mind-set that twists the purpose and potential of the teen years and threatens to cripple our generation. Our uprising won’t be marked by mass riots and violence, but by millions of individual teens quietly choosing to turn the low expectations of our culture upside down.”
― Alex Harris, quote from Do Hard Things: A Teenage Rebellion Against Low Expectations


“For all of us, expectations are a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
― Alex Harris, quote from Do Hard Things: A Teenage Rebellion Against Low Expectations


“God calls us to be examples. Where our culture might expect little, God expects great things.”
― Alex Harris, quote from Do Hard Things: A Teenage Rebellion Against Low Expectations



“Jesus said that it doesn’t matter if you have the admiration of the world if you lose your soul,”
― Alex Harris, quote from Do Hard Things: A Teenage Rebellion Against Low Expectations


“the modern concept of adolescence is not a biological stage, but a cultural mind-set. It doesn’t stop when you graduate from high school, or when you turn twenty-one.”
― Alex Harris, quote from Do Hard Things: A Teenage Rebellion Against Low Expectations


“Do Hard Things will help recruit, develop, and deploy a new generation of young culture warriors.”
― Alex Harris, quote from Do Hard Things: A Teenage Rebellion Against Low Expectations


“Working on the campaigns taught us that never trying is a lot worse than losing.”
― Alex Harris, quote from Do Hard Things: A Teenage Rebellion Against Low Expectations


“the three pillars of the Rebelution: character, competence, and collaboration”
― Alex Harris, quote from Do Hard Things: A Teenage Rebellion Against Low Expectations



“And it’s not just in America. Countries around the world have developed names for young “adults”
― Alex Harris, quote from Do Hard Things: A Teenage Rebellion Against Low Expectations


“Isn’t that exactly what has happened? Entire industries—movie, music, fashion, fast food—and countless online services revolve around the consumer habits of, you guessed it, teens. With all this money and attention focused on teens, the teen years are viewed as some sort of vacation.”
― Alex Harris, quote from Do Hard Things: A Teenage Rebellion Against Low Expectations


“We’re passionate about these causes because God has placed them on our hearts.”
― Alex Harris, quote from Do Hard Things: A Teenage Rebellion Against Low Expectations


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About the author

Alex Harris
Born place: in Portland, OR, The United States
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― Laury Falter, quote from Reckoning


“So many synapses,' Drisana said. 'Ten trillion synapses in the cortex alone.'
Danlo made a fist and asked, 'What do the synapses look like?'
'They're modelled as points of light. Ten trillion points of light.' She didn't explain how neurotransmitters diffuse across the synapses, causing the individual neurons to fire. Danlo knew nothing of chemistry or electricity. Instead, she tried to give him some idea of how the heaume's computer stored and imprinted language. 'The computer remembers the synapse configuration of other brains, brains that hold a particular language. This memory is a simulation of that language. And then in your brain, Danlo, select synapses are excited directly and strengthened. The computer speeds up the synapses' natural evolution.'
Danlo tapped the bridge of his nose; his eyes were dark and intent upon a certain sequence of thought. 'The synapses are not allowed to grow naturally, yes?'
'Certainly not. Otherwise imprinting would be impossible.'
'And the synapse configuration – this is really the learning, the essence of another's mind, yes?'
'Yes, Danlo.'
'And not just the learning – isn't this so? You imply that anything in the mind of another could be imprinted in my mind?'
'Almost anything.'
'What about dreams? Could dreams be imprinted?'
'Certainly.'
'And nightmares?'
Drisana squeezed his hand and reassured him. 'No one would imprint a nightmare into another.'
'But it is possible, yes?'
Drisana nodded her head.
'And the emotions ... the fears or loneliness or rage?'
'Those things, too. Some imprimaturs – certainly they're the dregs of the City – some do such things.'
Danlo let his breath out slowly. 'Then how can I know what is real and what is unreal? Is it possible to imprint false memories? Things or events that never happened? Insanity? Could I remember ice as hot or see red as blue? If someone else looked at the world through shaida eyes, would I be infected with this way of seeing things?'
Drisana wrung her hands together, sighed, and looked helplessly at Old Father.
'Oh ho, the boy is difficult, and his questions cut like a sarsara!' Old Father stood up and painfully limped over to Danlo. Both his eyes were open, and he spoke clearly. 'All ideas are infectious, Danlo. Most things learned early in life, we do not choose to learn. Ah, and much that comes later. So, it's so: the two wisdoms. The first wisdom: as best we can, we must choose what to put into our brains. And the second wisdom: the healthy brain creates its own ecology; the vital thoughts and ideas eventually drive out the stupid, the malignant and the parasitical.”
― David Zindell, quote from The Broken God


“Any other vexations to report?" he asks.

"I love the word 'vexations.'"

"It's the 'x.' Nice to jump off a 'v' and bite into an 'x' like that."

"Just the usual ones," she says.

"How was the weekend?"

"Vexing. Not really, I just wanted to say it. You?”
― Michael Cunningham, quote from By Nightfall


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